I am a new first grade teacher from Boston, MA. For the first time I am teaching students who do not speak English as their primary language. At the same time, English is the primary language of about half of my students. I am struggling in my efforts to teach basic reading to both groups of kids at the same. This week I attended the NAEYC conference in Atlanta, Georgia in search of tools to help me deal with this situation.

One software product that seemed promising is a sight words website called www.sightwordswithsamson.com. I looked at the free trial and it seems well suited for my English speaking kids but I am unsure of the value with the ESL students. The trade show rep assured me that this product is widely used by ESL teachers so I was hoping to find out if anyone is familar with this product. If so, any thoughts or comments on the value it would have in my situation?